Raila
The Couple Raila is the name used to refer to the romantic relationship between Starla and Rai. It is the largest paring in Kingdom Spirits Chronicles. The Relationship Part I Starla and Rai first meet when Rai and the party go to Cordelia to seek aid from the princess, as she is the successor to Caton the Wise. They appear to be on friendly terms for the most part, with Starla often lightheartedly teasing and trolling him. From the very beginning, Starla was always interested in Rai's growth as a swordsman and someone from the Thet bloodline and Rai was always impressed with Starla's tactical abilities. Starla was always mentioned to personally include Rai in a lot of her battling strategies. The two notably cheer each other when they take part in the Arena challenge at Leriann and Starla mentions to Sera that she noticed Rai's potential to be a powerful warrior and with Rai's activation of the Mark of Thet, she is impressed. Rai praises and defends Starla's abilities when Heath brings it up. Other moments with the two include him being fond of her cooking, even though she is evidently horrible at it as the others are too scared to touch her food. At one point, Rai asks Pongo where Starla is and Pongo teases him about missing her putting him in her battle plans. And Pongo even suggests that Rai wants to impress her, only for the latter to get annoyed. After the disaster at a Fortress in Thet that was partially caused by Rai, he finds Starla lying on the ground, injured and he notably holds onto her, showing concern. When Rai is feeling down about what he did, Starla is one of the people who stays with him to comfort him. Rai tells her and Heath about some of his backstory and explains why people in Thet don't exactly treat him the greatest and Starla sympathizes. Rai reciprocates this. After the party meets Calysta for the first time, Starla leaves quickly and the party members notably tell Rai to go talk to her. Rai manages to find Starla and he listens to her backstory regarding her and her mother and he is shown to be very understanding and sympathetic as the two were both lonely as children. Rai shows guilt over the fact that Starla's master sacrificed himself to save Rai and Irvine and that her master was the closest thing she had to a father, but Starla states that it's not his fault. After she explains why she has trouble trusting people, Rai asks her if she trusted him and she says she does as Caton did. After Lissa joins the party, Starla is notably uneasy about this and Rai doesn't blame her for it, despite trusting Lissa. When the two become friends soon after, Rai mentions how girls are confusing. When Eden calls Starla "beautiful", Rai notably looks happy. While they have these moments together, it appears that they are just good friends around this time, as Starla sometimes acts as Rai's "therapist" and she still teases him. When the two receive their blessings from Celeste, they train together and help each other. On the night before the final battle, Lissa notably teases Rai about possibly being a king somehow one day, hinting about marrying Starla and Rai gets embarrassed. Finally the two talk about what will happen after the war is over and how communication would work, and Rai attempts to confess his feelings for Starla but is interrupted. After the final battle and when the party members all return home, Rai walks Starla to the Thet Capital City's exist and see's her off early the morning after everyone said their farewell's. She tells him to go ahead and surpass his brother in fighting skill and he calls her "troublesome". The two were said to communicate by letters in the Part I ending. Part II About two and a half years later, Rai and Starla reunite for the first time. This long absence of not seeing each other is due to the fact that Rai was busy with his brother, uncle, and Irvine with the Royal Garde and Starla was training with Lissa. Because of Lissa's Coronation, Irvine, Rai, and Cherie go meet up with Starla at her Castle. They run into her battling a giant monster and utilizing her newly honed skills, much to Rai's amazement. When Starla sees Rai for the first time in a while, she hugs him and he blushes and she also comments on his more muscular appearance and checks him out. Starla mentions soon after writing letters to Cherie and Irvine and Rai shows dismay at this, as recently he claims that Starla has only been writing to them and NOT him. He finds out immediately that Irvine was the one who stole the letters and read them and forgot to return them to Rai, and Rai gets ticked off at this. Once the entire party reunites, Eden compliments Starla on her maintained beauty and as usual, Rai doesn't seem to mind. When Eden refers to Starla as a "Jubblie" and Rai finds out that he's talking about Starla's figure, he gets very uncomfortable. It is also mentioned that Starla's father has been pressuring Starla to choose a suitor to marry soon as he has presented her with many candidates, much to Starla's annoyance as she doesn't have much interest in marriage at this point in time, believing it to be too early. Rai shows alarm at this. When the party discusses this marriage bit later on, Rai is shown to be imagining him and Starla in wedding attire. When the party confronts Sevinnon for the first time, Starla saves Rai's life multiple times. Afterwards, he consults with Eden about a present to give to her as a thanks for saving him and for everything she did to help him improve as a person. He ends up giving her a sharpening stone for her knives, prompting Eden to call him an "idiot". Later on, the party finds wanted posters from Sevinnon about the two with very bad drawings of themselves on there. Starla notes how ugly the drawing of her is and she is horrified and worried, so she asks Rai what he thinks of her appearance. Rai replies, calling her beautiful, mainly liking her hair, eyes, curves and admits that he pretty much likes everything. However, to this day, Starla still trolls and teases him and at one point steals his cupcakes. At one point, Starla and the party have to climb up, and Starla realizes that she has a relatively short skirt, so she makes everyone else go up before her. Rai of course, doesn't understand why she's acting this way and offers to help her up. After Rai's battle with Eden, Starla is severely injured, and Rai carries her to safety in his arms and helps nurse her back to heath. When she awakes, he hugs her in relief. Not too long afterwards, Eden mentions Rai carrying Starla and Starla is alarmed at this and assumes that Rai didn't want to because of her weight, thanks to Eden's teasing, much to Rai's horror. A few other times ensure with Starla's future marriage being brought up and even Calysta comments on how cute the two are together, but Starla herself doesn't really understand what she's talking about, as she this whole time is oblivious to Rai's feelings. As the War approaches, there are a few instances where it shows Starla reciprocating the feelings as she mentions liking blondes and Pongo points out that Starla has feelings for him. Eventually, Eden and Sera both point out that Starla has been "pulling the moves" and "flirting" with Rai and at one point, Starla questions why Rai has been avoiding her as Starla once came into his tent and threw potatoes at him to wake him up so she could speak with him and Rai avoided her because it made it sound like something inappropriate was happening, much to her confusion and Rai exasperatingly states that Starla may be a genius, but she is completely clueless. By the night before the Final Battle, Starla goes up to Rai. She mentions the marriage situation again and Rai is a bit disappointed, until she admits that she loves Rai and chooses him as a suitor, as she is aware by this time about his feelings for her, as she didn't realize it until now. He agrees and they kiss. Even though they agree to be betrothed to each other, they don't really make it seem like they're together in front of the party, which makes sense given their personalities. In the Part II Ending, Rai comes to the Cordelia Castle to live with Starla and her parents comment on how he is a fine choice. It's revealed that they had at least a few children together in Rising Spirits Chronicles as some of their great grandchildren appear in the game. Scenarios and Sidequests One time, Starla is cranky because the party didn't finish a fight with a giant monster that she believed they could've taken on and Rai tries to cheer her up with tea that ends up tasting terrible, attempts to give her tent a makeover but it turns out to be a scam and everything gets stolen, etc. Eden asks Rai if he can have Starla instead because of these screwups and Rai strongly objects to this. A few times Eden and Irvine mess with Rai when they have Eden flirt with Starla to make Rai jealous. In later Scenarios, they're seen to be closer and in one, she helps feed Rai soup as he hurt his hand recently and her face is a bit red when she does this. In another one, the other party members refer to Starla as "evil" and Rai immediately defends her, refusing to believe it, and whites out from shock when they point out she has an AB bloodtype. In their Pair Up Scenarios together, they start off relatively friendly with each other, how they like Pairing Up together. They compliment each other and Starla points out Rai's potential, which makes him happy. He believes that speaking with her puts him at ease and comfort. Her belief in him motivates him to strive to be better and when he asks her about why she put him as the squad leader for the Fortress Mission, she explains that she knew what he could do and explains that everyone grows from their mistakes and this makes him happy as he wants to help her too. By the third Pair Up Scenario for Part I, Rai clearly appears to have feelings for her, as he states that he cannot stop thinking about her as she's there to help him and check up on him, even with her own problems. She's very playful with him at this point, still teasing him. She says that he's important to her and that she would try to visit him after the war is over and this excites Rai, only for her to say that Irvine and the others are important to her too. They're still on very friendly terms with each other in the Part II Pair Up Scenarios as Starla states that she missed him and missed Pairing Up with him. They playfully banter with each other about who protects who and they also compliment each other's appearances. Starla states that he's her best friend and is way better than the "boneheads" that she has to choose to be betrothed to and that she has to know the person for a few years at least before marrying them and Rai states that she will find him eventually. The second Part II Pair Up takes place after Rai takes care of her injuries and carries her and Starla thanks him for this and they talk about how their relationship has developed over the years. She notes that Rai has always been so protective and caring of her and how she likes it when the others tease her about them. By this time, she states that she's in love with him and how she noticed how excited she was when Rai hugged her, finally realizing who she wants to be with as she knows by now that Rai loves her too. The final Part II Pair Up takes place after the scene where she confesses that she loves him and they mention living arrangements and what they will do together. In Starla's Pair Up with Cherie, it's revealed that Starla tried to learn how to cook better for Rai, as the two were going to end up getting married but it turns out everything is fine since Rai can cook and since they live in a castle, there are cooks there too. Their Views on Each Other Rai seems to like Starla from the beginning as a friend. Even though she teases him a lot, Rai seems to think she is a very smart, powerful, and kind woman who cares about him a lot. He views her as a sweet girl who is very attractive and he genuinely cares about her wellbeing and blushes in some instances around her. He understands and sympathizes with her deeply. Even though he can be exasperated by her cluelessness when it comes to love and gets trolled by him quite a bit, he does grow to fall in love with her as they grow together and this extends to a deeper love by Part II when he sometimes thinks about marriage and shows concern when she mentions suitors. When she gets stabbed by Eden, it is the last straw with him, and he ultimately fights Eden once and for all and confronts him as he could not see the one he loved get hurt so badly by a friend and he takes good care of her. When he starts to realize that Starla has grown feelings for him too, he notably gets more flustered about this, but gets over it. Starla seems to view Rai as a good friend and loves to mess around with him especially. She seems to view him purely as a friend at first and always wants to include him in her strategies as she sees and understands him for who he is. Starla greatly values her friendship with him and she always encourages him. By Part II, she still views him as a friend and is oblivious to his obvious feelings for her and doesn't even realize her own feelings until after the Myriad Arc when Rai takes care of her. This obliviousness is possibly to the fact that her parents had a rather rough marriage with Calysta's betrayal and Starla herself never really knew anything about love. After she realizes her feelings, she wishes to talk to Rai more and spend time with him, and attempts to be more direct until she confesses how she feels about him. Among the Fans Raila is the most popular pairing in KSC as it is the main and most prominent couple in the game. It is definitely one of the most interesting because of the fan theories about what their children would be like because this is the first known couple that connects two Triad Kingdoms through marriage and offspring and what types of abilities someone with mixed Thet and Cordelian blood would have. Their marriage ultimately brings the Triad a lot closer together as this would be the first time Cordelia has a king with Thet descent. Ultimately, the pairing was well praised for the interaction and strong relationship based off support and mutual respect for each other. Interesting Facts * They're both considered to be "Dog people" * Rai seems to be the only one who likes Starla's cooking as she is terrible at it. * Rai often refers to Starla as "Starlie" * Starla and Rai were always meant to be a couple from the beginning